The Prototype
By Mary Tharin
Do you like it?
The question hangs in a blue bubble underneath a photo that Astrid took of herself in a dressing room mirror. She’s wearing a red floral-patterned dress with cut-outs that expose dark triangles of skin around her waist. The answer is obvious—she looks gorgeous—but Hannah’s thumbs hover over the small letters on the screen. She paces back and forth along the sidewalk in front of the bus stop and tries to craft a response that doesn’t give away too much.
A sharp honk makes her look up and she sees the Volvo in front of her, idling at the curb. Marylin smiles through the drivers-side window.
“What are you doing here?” Hannah hadn’t meant the question to come out like an accusation.
“Lovely to see you, too,” her stepmother says. She’s wearing a dark blazer and big sunglasses despite the unremitting clouds. “I got off work early, and your dad suggested we come pick you up.”
Bill leans forward in the passenger seat. His face is flushed light pink all the way up to his greying hairline. “Get in, kiddo! I have a surprise!”
Hannah pulls open the rear door and flings her backpack to the floor. As she sinks into the faux leather upholstery, her shoulder brushes up against another shoulder. She gives her stepsister a light shove.
“Why are you sitting in the middle seat?”
“Daddy told me to.”
“Why?”
Bill cranes his neck to look back at them. “Hannah, Avery—I have something to show you.” He holds up his hand. Between his thumb and index finger rests a small white box. “They gave me a prototype.”
“Oh no,” Hannah mutters. “Not another one.”
Bill doesn’t seem to hear her. He pops open one end of the box and carefully removes a razor-thin square of translucent plastic. It wobbles as he holds it up for them.
“What is it?” Avery asks with the unbridled enthusiasm of a seven-year-old. Somehow she has forgotten the disasters wreaked by the robotic dog (destroyed Hannah’s favorite shirt) and the self-driving scooter (crashed her into a pothole).
Bill grins. “Watch.”
He turns and sticks the patch to the bottom-right corner of the windshield. As soon as he lifts his hand away, the square lights up—bright blue.
“Oooohh.” Avery leans forward to get a better view.
The square fades and then pulses blue again.
Hannah frowns. “I don’t get—”
In a sudden blinding flash, all the car windows turn blue. Hannah swings her arm up over her eyes and the seatbelt hugs her as Marilyn slams the breaks.
“It’s okay!” says Bill. “Just keep driving!”
The flash lasts only a second, and when the windows clear up, the world outside the car has transformed. The sky is no longer a bleak February grey. It is vivid blue. And the trees that were bare moments ago are full of leaves, all of them an ultra-saturated shade of green.
“Waaaoooowwwww,” says Avery.
“Bill.” Marilyn sounds worried. “What’s going on?”
“Isn’t it glorious? It’s called Ride+.”
“Is it safe?”
“Yes, yes, you won’t hit anything. Everything you see is real. The version you see is just...improved.”
It’s true. The houses they pass are brighter than before, their paint fresh. Yards overflow with blooming vines. What was mundane seconds earlier now dazzles.
“Wow that is...really something,” Marilyn says.
“It’s going to revolutionize my commute.” Bill takes off his glasses, rubs them hastily on his shirt, then puts them back on.
“Look!” Avery points out the window as a flock of glittering purple butterflies flits past.
Bill swings around to smile at her. “Do you like it?”
“I love it!”
“What about you kiddo?” He looks at Hannah expectantly.
She pulls her gaze away from the window and crosses her arms. “It’s fake.” She feels a little guilty, the way her dad’s face crashes. But she can’t forgive his enthusiasm. Not when she knows that no matter how deep she digs, she’ll never be able to muster her own.
“Now Hannah,” comes Marilyn’s voice. “Don’t be a pill.”
Hannah curls her shoulders toward her phone, where Astrid’s text dangles unanswered.
“Can we just go home?” she asks. Her arched tone, this time, is intentional.
Marilyn glances over at Bill and pats him on the knee. “Fine, we will drop you off,” she says. “And then the rest of us are going for a ride!”
“Yayyyyyy!!” says Avery.
--
Ride+ does revolutionize Bill Gerard’s commute. He springs out of bed each morning eager to spend nearly an hour on the road. The cars that drive alongside his look sleek and clean, the people inside them young and attractive. A strip of land beside the highway, which he remembers being covered in abandoned trash, transforms into a savannah. Giraffes and elephants glide past, inches from his windows. A few days later, the animals are replaced by dinosaurs. Two raptors battle to the death in the sky above the road as he drives home. The next night he witnesses another battle, this one between spaceships.
The only thing that dampens his enjoyment is Hannah. There was a time when she went everywhere with him—first in a baby carrier strapped to his chest, then in an overpriced stroller, then in light-up sneakers with wheels built into the soles. Now she’s fifteen and, naturally, wants nothing to do with him. Still, he wishes she’s been more enthusiastic about the prototype. He’d harbored a secret hope that they’d go on drives together.
Over time he does notice a few glitches in Ride+. When he turns the car sharply, the images sometimes blink off for a moment. And after a while he realizes that the faces of the other drivers all look quite similar. Attractive, sure, but too uniform to be realistic.
Bill reports the bugs to the technical team and, judging from the polite email he gets back, they seem grateful. A few days later his manager comes by his workstation and claps him on the shoulder.
“Enjoying the prototype?”
“Am I!” Bill swivels around in his chair. “It’s terrific. I can’t wait to come to work every day.” He smiles wryly. “And then I can’t wait to leave.”
This joke gets the reception he was hoping for—a hearty laugh and another slap on the shoulder.
“I’m happy to hear it,” his manager says. “And I heard you gave the design team some valuable feedback. We all really appreciate it.”
“My pleasure. I just wish I could use Ride+ all the time!”
His manager flashes him a conspiratorial smile. “Won’t be long,” he says.
One week later, an engineer hands Bill a pair of glasses. They look not unlike his own, though the frames are thicker in a style he presumes is considered hip.
“Will these work with my prescription?” Bill asks.
The hoodie-clad engineer smirks and shakes his head. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore. See this?” He points to a small metallic circle just inside the left earpiece. “Life+ has a direct mind-to-screen interface.”
“What does that mean?”
“The user experience is customizable. It incorporates feedback from your brain.”
“So I can...think things into existence?”
The engineer shrugs. “Kind of. Here, try them.”
The Life+ goggles are surprisingly light and fit Bill’s face perfectly. The piece of metal rests just above his ear. It’s cold at first, but after a second he can’t feel it anymore.
“Try to read this.” The engineer holds up his phone. On the screen are a few lines of fuzzy text.
“I can’t.”
“Try.”
Bill stares at the grey smudges for a few seconds. Gradually, they turn into words. They say: Welcome to your best life, Bill Gerard.
“Wow!”
“You can read it?”
“Yeah!”
“Good, that means it’s calibrating correctly. It’ll take a few days to break in.” The kid’s expression gradually becomes friendlier. “They told you about the security on this project, right?”
“Yes,” Bill says. “Top secret.”
“Right. That means you can’t discuss it with anyone. Not even your family.” The engineer conveys this information in such a cheerful manner that it doesn’t trouble Bill one bit.
--
Hannah shoves a forkful of quinoa into her mouth, swallows, and scoops up another. It tastes like sawdust and she imagines it lining the bottom of a hamster cage. She isn’t even hungry. Dinner is just a barrier between her and the phone that sits charging on her bedside table. She’s certain Astrid has replied by now, and the prospect of her answer makes Hannah vaguely nauseous. She already regrets admitting her feelings in a text. She should have done it in person. Her gut twists and she puts down her fork.
“How about you, Hannah?”
“Huh?”
“Your day,” Marilyn says. “How was your day at school?”
“Oh.” She shrugs. “Fine. I actually have a ton of homework. Can I be excused?”
Marilyn lets out a weary sigh. “What do you think, Bill?”
Hannah and her father haven’t talked much since he brought home that car window trick. She knows she hurt his feelings and she doesn’t want to apologize. Not that it makes any difference. They haven’t talked—really talked—in years.
But now he’s staring at her with a goofy grin on his face.
“You’re all just so beautiful,” he says wistfully. “My beautiful girls.”
“Ew,” Hannah mutters under her breath.
“Aw, dear.” Marilyn smiles and runs a hand through her hair. “How sweet.”
“I’m going to take that as a yes.” Hannah grabs her plate and stands up.
“Love you, sweetheart,” says Bill, his voice sticky sweet.
Hannah stops, holding her half-eaten meal aloft. She’s never seen her dad smile like that.
“Whatever.” She slinks off to the kitchen and drops her dish in the sink.
The walk to her room seems to take longer than usual. As soon as she tilts the phone toward her face, Hannah feels her breath constrict. There is no message. Nothing obscures the photo that she set as her background: a selfie she snapped one windy afternoon at the shore with her best friend. The friend who stood beside her at her mother’s funeral. The friend who’d kept her afloat when her world had cracked apart. The friend who, lately, had started to feel more like a soulmate.
Astrid, the friend who now won’t return her texts.
--
Bill Gerard’s life has become a dream. The sun shines all day, and at night the sky fills with more stars than he knew existed. His favorite barista flirts with him when he orders his coffee each morning. His coworkers smile and listen attentively when he offers glowing progress reports to the product development team. He hasn’t found a single glitch in Life+.
All of his senses are enhanced. Even the feel of the wind on his face makes him shiver with delight. At first, he marvels at how different his world has become. But with each passing day, he notices the differences less and less.
He takes Marilyn on a date, their first in over a year. She looks ravishing in a black dress that hugs her curves. They go to a nice restaurant downtown, which is much more elegant than he remembers. Ornate chandeliers cast a soft glow across the faces of happy people all chatting in hushed, melodious tones.
Bill orders a bottle of cabernet, which turns out to be best wine he has ever tasted. He is halfway through the best steak he has ever eaten when Marilyn says she thinks they should talk about Hannah.
“What a great kid,” Bill says. “So beautiful and so smart!” He stabs another slice of beef with his fork.
Marilyn nods, and then says something Bill doesn’t understand.
“What’s that?”
“I’m worried about her.”
Bill vaguely recalls a time when he was constantly worried about Hannah. For almost a year after her mother died, she would fly into thunderous rages. Every time he tried to calm her down, she’d scream even louder, slam doors, throw things. In the end, he’d stopped trying. He’d shifted his focus to a new job, and started dating his recently-divorced friend from law school.
Eventually, the rages stopped, too.
“Oh lighten up, Marilyn.” He waves the hand that holds his wineglass, causing the dark red liquid to swirl violently. “Let’s enjoy ourselves tonight!”
“I just think you should talk with her.” She smiles, teeth perfect, eyes sparkling. Bill dismisses the possibility that her facial expression does not match her words.
“Of course I will,” he says, and takes a long sip from his wineglass.
--
I hooked up with Jason Bardot this wknd
Hannah pretends to do homework while glancing at her phone every two minutes for the next hour until Astrid replies.
Nice. he’s hot. how was it?
Hannah considers responding with the truth. That by the time she was on his bed, she’d thought about screaming and pushing him away, but it had seemed too late. That she had escaped to a place inside her mind where she could pretend it wasn’t happening. That his face, at the end, had looked grotesque. That afterward, she’d felt a vast emptiness.
It was amazing
Hannah pulls a lighter from under her pillow, clicks it on, and holds the ends of her dark hair over the flame. An acrid smell fills the room. She wishes now that Astrid hadn’t replied. At least then she could imagine she was jealous or upset. But she doesn’t seem to care at all.
She hears a knock and tucks the lighter into the pocket of her sweatshirt. “What?” she calls, louder than necessary.
“It’s your dad. Can we talk?”
Hannah’s heartbeat spikes. Did he find out about Jason? How could he have?
“Sure,” she responds, seeing no other option.
Bill opens the door and walks in. He’s wearing that same dazed-yet-gleeful expression he’s had for weeks. He gazes around the room—at the posters attached to the walls with multicolored thumbtacks, and the small twinkle lights she arranged years ago—as if it’s all new to him. Hannah wonders why he doesn’t comment on the smell.
“We haven’t talked in a while,” he says as he sits down on her plastic desk chair, “and I’m just wondering how you’re doing.”
Hannah looks down and shrugs. “Fine.”
“Everything ok at school?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, Dad. School is swell.” Her voice drips with sarcasm. “Everything is awesome. I’m living my best life.” She holds up her hands in a hokey double thumbs-up.
She waits for her father’s smile to deflate and his jovial mood to evaporate. Waits for him to acknowledge her misery. Waits for a reminder that she still has control over something.
“Wonderful!” Bill claps his hands together. “That is exactly what I wanted to hear.” He gives her a brisk hug and pecks her on the forehead.
And then he leaves.
As soon as the door shuts, Hannah feels a rush of dread. The walls of her room seem to close in on her. She grabs her phone, desperate for an escape, but sees only her own stupid face smiling back at her.
--
On Sundays, Bill likes to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Today Avery is with him because Marilyn is at a book club, or a hair appointment, or some combination of the two. An attractive neighbor smiles and waves at them from her yard, which bursts with puffy pink flowers he cannot name. Bill waves back. He is trying to come up with something charming to say when Avery interrupts.
“I’m cold.”
The sun is bright, but he can never say no to Avery, so he agrees to turn around. He walks slowly so she can keep up, her small hand swinging in his. For as long as he’s known her, she’s been such a happy child. His little ray of sunshine.
They are nearly home when a scream slices through the quiet suburban afternoon. It is a sound unlike anything Bill has ever heard: joy, ecstasy, elation all rolled into one. The voice is unmistakably that of his wife.
Avery drops his hand and runs to the house. Bill quickens his pace to follow her. When he gets to the front door, he finds it open. Marilyn is standing in the hallway, frantically rummaging through her purse.
“Honey, what—” Marilyn finds her phone and dials. “Hello,” she says, “we have an emergency—”
Another delighted yell, this one from Avery. Bill follows the noise to Hannah’s room.
“What is it sweetie? What’s so exciting?”
He walks in and sees Hannah napping. She looks so peaceful, her breath flowing in little wheezes through parted lips. Avery stands a few feet from the bed, staring at her, hands clasped over her mouth. Then Marilyn is there, grabbing Avery and trying to pull her out of the bedroom.
“Honey, what’s all the fuss about?” Bill asks.
“The fuss?”
He sees Marilyn’s hand swing toward him, but he doesn’t duck. The sensation in his face is, at first, a thrill. As the goggles fly off and he blinks into a blurry world, the feeling changes to a dull ache. Noise floods him. The tone of everything shifts down, from major to minor.
Avery is crying. Marilyn is screaming.
“How could you let this happen?”
Bill blinks. “What?” His mind feels mushy.
“Hannah!” Marilyn points an accusatory finger across the room.
He looks again. His daughter’s lips are blue. Her mouth hangs open ghoulishly, and one pale arm droops off the side of the bed. On the floor, an orange plastic bottle lies empty.
Bill looks away. “She seemed fine...” His words come out in a whisper.
"ARE YOU BLIND?”
“I...I can’t see without...let me just...I need to get...” Bill shuffles out into the hall as a siren rises in the distance. He scans the floor, but he can’t see them, so he gets down onto his hands and knees and crawls along, arms sweeping across the dark carpet. When his fingers brush against the plastic frames, he cries out in relief. His hands shake as he returns the goggles to his face.
Bill’s world comes back into focus. The siren wail shifts intoa poignant melody. He stands up, walks back to his daughter’s room, and looks in. Marilyn holds Hannah’s head against her chest and rocks her, gently murmuring as if in prayer. Avery kneels next to the bed, holding her sister’s hand in both of hers. The melody crescendoes and the house pulses with blue and red light. The room glows, illuminated as if by sun through stained glass.
Hannah looks so much like her mother when she sleeps.
The thought jars him, pitches him off balance. Doubt, like a waft of decay, invades Bill’s serenity. Unbidden, a long-buried memory surfaces.
The funeral. Rain crashes around him, pieces of soggy grass stick to his shoes. Hannah, only twelve years old, stands on the other side of the yawning hole in the ground. Her fingers clench the handle of her blue umbrella. Her face is stoic; she is determined not to cry. But the lost look in her eyes is worse than crying.
Why wasn’t he standing next to her? Why wasn’t he holding her umbrella?
In front of him, fifteen-year-old Hannah opens her eyes. Her gaze flicks up, and one corner of her mouth lifts ever so slightly. Marilyn and Avery don’t notice the smile. For that sliver of a second, father and daughter share a secret all to themselves. The moment crystalizes and hangs suspended, perfect and eternal.
Tears rise, blurring Bill’s vision. He knows it isn’t true. Knows he’s been selfish. Knows he can’t hide anymore. He reaches up and, with two shaking hands, pulls the goggles from his face.
Chaos engulfs him. Heaving sobs, pulsing light, voices shouting from the driveway, coming through the front door. The goggles fall and hit the floor with a crunch.
Hannah is not smiling. Her expression is pained, her forehead creased and dotted with sweat. Flecks of foamy saliva have collected around her mouth, and her face is ghostly pale.
But her eyes are open. Bleary and unfocussed, heavy lids barely lifting. But open.
It is, by far, the most beautiful thing Bill Gerard has ever seen.
THE END